Written by Dean Radford’s careful, detailed description of “Lipstickgate” reminds me why he was promoted to Editor of the Renton Reporter. He covers a wealth of information in this piece, in a way that strikes me as readable and fair. He leaves it to the readers to make the ultimate call on what happened, while accurately and concisely providing the distilled details of 105 pages worth of police investigation. I feel that between Mr. Radford’s story, and his editorial on the same topic, he conveys a vivid and correct view of the goofy, unnerving, and almost surreal events comprising “Lipstickgate”.
While I have tried to honestly and accurately share about this episode on this blog, I find it hard to describe without inserting my own opinions about what I think happened and why. I’m only human, after all, and I was too close to the events and the following months of total weirdness to be completely impartial. So I really appreciate that Dean Radford stepped in, and described the story impartially for everyone in time for the upcoming election. People can make up their own minds about what happened, based on his report.
Sure, part of me would have liked to see the article reach a firm conclusion about what happened that night… but that would not have been appropriate for the newspaper. There was no final determination in the criminal investigation of this matter. So, as the lead Detective David Patterson once told me, this event now must be resolved in the political arena instead of the legal one. The Reporter provided an outline for Renton citizens to understand and evaluate this.
Interestingly, in Mr. Radford’s editorial he reminds readers that he too was in the council chambers on the night everything went down, so he was in a good position to observe the events and the aftermath. In fact, Mr. Radford was even interviewed as a possible witness by the Kent police, which he mentions in his editorial.
This story is in the October 17th edition…here is the Link.
